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The SME of Besançon bought Diaclone in 2012, then participated in the creation of SynAbs Belgian start-up in 2015. Business is booming.

Philippe Dulieu, PhD in biochemistry, is forming a small group that counts in the world of the monoclonal antibodies. These molecules - descended from a single strain of lymphocytes, the same as the immune system produced naturally - were originally intended for diagnostic methods, but are increasingly used as therapeutic solutions.

Working on synergies

In 2002, Philippe Dulieu founded RD-Biotech. This service company offers services and products dedicated for the pharmaceutical and the biotechnology industries in France, Switzerland, Europe and the United States. RD Biotech targets very large industrial companies such as Sanofi, but also small players who have not yet facilities, but have already raised funds, and for which the Besançon team is building prototypes. "Our know-how is to develop molecules in the preclinical stage, then medicines" he explains. Ten years later, in 2012, RD-Biotech bought Diaclone, a spin-off from EFS Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, which was taken over a few years earlier by an American group, Gen Probe, who had not the key elements to increase the value of the latter. The holding Biotech Investissement was born that year to support both structures.

This return to French capital and a clear strategy have restored Diaclone to its full potential. Founded in 1986, Diaclone produces diagnostic tests and antibodies that have become references in the market. "The respective know-how of RD-Biotech and Diaclone are complementary, the two companies are customers and suppliers of each other," adds Philippe Dulieu, President of Biotech Investissement. The third element of the rocket was added at the end of 2015 with the Biotech Investissement stakes in Synabs, a Belgian start-up that exploits a license for other antibodies developed by the University of Louvain. "We thus have a one-stop-shop solution, a symbiosis of markets and a synergy in terms of technologies. "

Based in Besançon, the group employs 55 people. It reached € 6 million in sales in 2016, marked by RD-Biotech's 50% growth in the last two years .

With the rise of biotherapeutics, RD-Biotech has a bright future ahead. Next step : own premises.

SynAbs is proud to announce strategic deal with successful company Dianova. Dianova has already demonstrated a huge knowledge and expertise in monoclonal antibodies and will consequently extend its catalogue with unique mAbs references from SynAbs. Under the terms of the agreement, Dianova will have access to unique portfolio of rats and guinea pigs mAbs to address German territory needs in R&D and IVD fields.

SynAbs is proud to appoint LuBioSience as its new distributor for Switzerland. LuBioScience has a seasoned team and expertise in selling biochemicals, including the specific monoclonal antibodies of SynAbs, in particular the anti-species which should be welcomed by the Swiss Biopharma R&D and IVD sector.

Monoclonal antibodies development has been limited for a long time to only two species : mice and rats. However, the immune systems of mice and rats are not the most suitable in terms of humoral response to certain antigens, such as human antigens like glucagon. Indeed, the protein sequence of glucagon is the same in mice, rats and human (fig. 1). Small not immunogenic antigens, such as antibiotics or toxins, generally failed to trigger an immune response in such species. This is why some companies have developed fusion cell lines to generate monoclonal antibodies in rabbit (Abcam-Epitomics) or in sheep (Bioventix). However, these two tools are not totally satisfactory whether in terms of cost, stability or productivity.

SynAbs has therefore opted to develop its own myeloma cell line to manufacture guinea pig monoclonal antibodies and offer more efficient investigation tools for researchers.

The Syn2.2 fusion cell line

After a year of research, SynAbs has managed to develop a fusion cell line, called Syn2.2, so that guinea pig B lymphocytes can be fused efficiently to obtain hybridomas that produce monoclonal antibodies in a stable way (fig. 2). Around 107 splenocytes can be isolated in a guinea pig spleen, a comparable number to rats but around twice that for mice. The Syn2.2 fusion rate with guinea pig splenocytes is comparable to that obtained with SP2O for mice or IR983 for rats, i.e. approximately 12 hybridomas per million fused splenocytes, which means that more than 1000 hybridomas can be obtained from a guinea pig spleen. After analysis, we observed that nearly 50% of the hybridomas produced an antibody,